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pie

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Pronunciation

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.[2][3] It appears in Medieval Latin pie, meat or fish in pastry, about 1303, perhaps related to Medieval Latin pia, pastry.[2][3] It is probably the same word as Middle English pie, magpie, borrowed from Old French pie, from Latin pīca (“magpie”),[4][5][6] perhaps because a pie's miscellaneous contents were compared with the odd objects a magpie collects.[4][7][3] The OED notes that the word is not known outside English except in Gaelic pighe, from English.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Food enclosed in pastry: 1303 in a Medieval Latin context, 1357–58 in English in Barnhart;[2] piehus, bakery, is from 1199.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages a pie had many ingredients and a pastry crust.[3] Fruit pies appear about 1600; the first apple pie on record is from 1590.[2][3] Something easy is from 1889, after easy as eating pie (1884).[3] Pie in the sky is from 1911, from Joe Hill's Wobbly parody of hymns,[3] the pie chart from 1922,[3] and pie-eyed, drunk, from 1904.[3] A share of something, a slice of the pie, is by 1967.[3]

Timeline

  • 1199 – piehus, a bakery.[2]
  • 1303 – pie in Medieval Latin.[2]
  • 1357 – in English.[2]
  • 1590 – apple pie.[2]
  • 1889 – something easy.[3]
  • 1911 – pie in the sky.[3]
  • 1922 – pie chart.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A baked dish of fruit, meat or vegetables with a top and often a base of pastry.
  2. A whole to be shared out: a bigger slice of the pie.
  3. (informal) Something very easy.

Word family

  • pielike
  • pie-eyed
  • pie-faced
  • piehole
  • apple-pie

Usage notes

Pie, the magpie, is recorded from the mid-13th century and survives in magpie.[2][3] In printing, pie (also pi) is a jumbled mass of type, from the 1650s.[3][4] The pie that was a small Indian coin, a quarter of an anna, is from Hindi pāī.[6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press